I noted in my last post, that I have discovered that I was trusting in government [Trump] and not in God; and that I had to repent for my disobedience and rebellion.
I am reviewing this material to help myself come to terms with my disobedience and to ascertain a path out of it. I hope you can gain from my notes.
Today, I am using an 8 minute excerpt of the Puritan divine, Jeremiah Burroughs’ writings to show very clearly what I mean:
I’m starting in point 6 of chapter 1 of Burroughs’ book; at the following subheading [all quotations from Burroughs book will be in red]:
- CONTENTMENT IS FREELY SUBMITTING TO AND TAKING PLEASURE IN GOD’S DISPOSAL:
“Disposal” means God’s manner of arranging things, ordaining things, ordering things in His world, which includes my little life and whatever enters into it; in other words, God’s providence to me is everything that comes into my life.
The election 2020 is one of those things. Every circumstance of it, was ordered by God; permitted by Him; ordained by Him.
When I did not accept His providence, I was very angry and extremely disappointed about what happened – the fraud, the denial of fraud, the voting by states and congress….
I felt helplessness more than anything else, which generated anger…. I was using my reason to assess the facts of what happened and to evaluate what the outcome should have been.
Millions of other conservatives were doing the same thing. We’d spent much time understanding everything about these matters that was relevant to the election.
The following 8 minute excerpt of Burroughs’ book, explains why those Christians who did what I did, were disobedient.
You may scoff, but if you want to follow Christ in a biblical manner, then what Burroughs says is extremely relevant – unless you want to hear, “Why do you call me Lord and do not what I say?”
The following 8 minute excerpt of Burroughs’ book covers sections 6 – 8; I will comment on a few words from these sections below this mp4:
A few highlights and comments:
Now when the soul comes to see its own unruliness… When the soul, observing how it is responding to God’s afflicting hand, sees that it is rebelling, not accepting His providence, it should then realize that it is out of line with God’s word, disobedient, and ask God’s Spirit for the grace to submit.
It is necessary to know what biblical rebellion and submission look like. One cannot know that if he does not know the Bible. It records countless examples of each of those things. Millions of Christians these days, make up their own way to worship God and to walk with Him; that is, they do not know what biblical obedience looks like, because they do not read and study the Bible; they derive their “way” from a Christian social context or hearsay….
- CONTENTMENT IS TAKING PLEASURE OF GOD’S DISPOSAL:
To be well pleased with God’s hand is a higher degree than the previous one. It comes from this: not only do I see that I should be content in this affliction, but I see that there is good in it. I find there is honey in this rock, and so I do not only say, I must, or I will submit to God’s hand. No, the hand of God is good, ‘it is good that I am afflicted.’
To acknowledge that it is just that I am afflicted is possible in one who is not truly contented. I may be convinced that God deals justly in this matter, he is righteous and just and it is right that I should submit to what he has done; O the Lord has done righteously in all ways! But that is not enough! You must say, ‘Good is the hand of the Lord.’ It was the expression of old Eli: ‘Good is the hand of the Lord,’ when it was a sore and hard word. It was a word that threatened very grievous things to Eli and his house, and yet Eli says, ‘Good is the word of the Lord.’ [See 1 Samuel 3:11-14; 4:10-11, 17ff to read about the judgment God told Samuel about Eli’s and his sons deaths – which Eli said was good.]
Burroughs closes out this section by explaining Paul’s following statement: It is no marvel, therefore, that Paul was content, for a verse or two after my text you read: ‘But I have all and abound. I am full’ (Philippians 4:18).
So, when you observe your reactions (thoughts, feelings, conduct) in response to God’s providence and you see anger, rationalization, rejection of it, defiance of His providence…you can truly state that you are in rebellion/disobedience.
In the Bible, one is told he must receive, accept, feel the pain of, God’s afflictions; it is by these that He conforms one to the image of His Son (see the last part of Ezekiel 36 for a clear example).
Obedience remains under His afflicting hand; it doesn’t run away to pleasure seeking; rebellion, etc.
When the apostle Paul was in prison, did he whine? No. He wrote several epistles, consider the message of Philippians to see what kinds of thoughts he was thinking and what kinds of attitudes he held about the world, his circumstances….
Christian history tells us that the Roman Emperor Nero used Christians for torches and fed them to lions; do we hear anywhere that Christians sought to overthrow him and replace him with a friendly ruler?
Nero was part of God’s providence to the church, for His specific reasons.
In the dvd Peter and Paul, about the book of Acts, (starring Anthony Hopkins and Robert Foxworth), the apostle Peter was in Rome encouraging Christians with words like the following:
(1Pet 4:12 [KJV]) Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: (1Pet 4:13 [KJV]) But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
We Christians in the US have had it very easy, it seems that those days are coming to an end; that we have already entered into a period of great affliction. And since our God is the sovereign ruler of His universe, these things are from His hand — a prayerful read of Romans 8 also provides a message about how we are to view afflictions:
(Rom 8:35 [KJV]) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? (Rom 8:36 [KJV]) As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. (Rom 8:37 [KJV]) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
- THE EIGHTH THING IN CONTENTMENT IS, SUBMITTING, AND TAKING PLEASURE IN GOD’S DISPOSAL.
That is to say, the soul that has learned this lesson of contentment looks up to God in all things. He does not look down at the instruments and means, so as to say that such a man did it, that it was the unreasonableness of such and such instruments, and similar barbarous usage by such and such; but he looks up to God. A contented heart looks to God’s disposal, and submits to God’s disposal, that is, he sees the wisdom of God in everything. In his submission he sees his sovereignty, but what makes him take pleasure is God’s wisdom. The Lord knows how to order things better than I. The Lord sees further than I do; I only see things at present but the Lord sees a great while from now. And how do I know but that had it not been for this affliction, I should have been undone….
That is, when I was thinking, about all of the specific instances of fraud that were disclosed; about the court disregarding those; about democrats claiming it was a fair election…I was looking at the wrong things — I was looking at God’s means and instruments which caused me to forget about being obedient to God’s providence to me; receiving it and submitting to His work in my life.
I should have been looking at God’s hand in these things. He was causing / permitting them to fall out that way. His means of bringing about His will at this time in history was to permit these things to occur. When I became angry, discontented, etc., then I was rejecting His providence.
And as I said in my last post, part of His providence to me was to clearly show me that I had misplaced my trust; I had placed it in the government of man, in my own reason… not in the God of this world. My personal sadness caused me to examine myself and look for the causes of this emotional pain.
As Burroughs says elsewhere, it is fine to pray that God would take away this affliction; it is disobedient to be angry at the circumstance, at God, at the people He used to bring the affliction… all of which I was doing.
Accepting such providences from God’s hand is not possible to one walking in the flesh. It, I think (as I am not in a state of contentment), that it must be by the grace of God’s Spirit. Via prayer, a willingness to submit, abiding in His word…as Burroughs outlines in his book (the kindle version of it is available for 99 cents, I linked it in part 1 of the series on The Rare Jewel…).
To see the six parts of the series on Burroughs’ book that I have already posted, see Categories: Spiritual Disciplines; also see the category, Jonathan Edwards, posts on glimpses into his spiritual life to get a similar example of how Edwards dealt with such things. He specifically said that when his feelings changed, he began looking for what caused those changes. He traced these back to his own motives, which is therein explained.
The following link will take you to Jonathan Edwards, post 1 of 3, wherein you will be given a glimpse of how he set spiritual resolutions and sought to keep them. Each of the 3 posts focus on different aspects of his walk with the Lord. All are very beneficial to those who vehemently seek to walk with the Lord. Jonathan was one of the most blessed men God gave to His church:
https://sheeplywolves.com/jonathan-edwards-a-glimpse-into-his-spiritual-journey/
If you found the linked post to be useful to enabling your walk with the Lord, then bookmark it, as the skills addressed in it take some time to learn, if you are not already proficient in self-observation, self-assessment, self-examination…. Part 3 of that Edwards mini-series has a link to a downloadable pdf self-exam packet that will enhance your skills at the identification of thoughts, feelings and behaviors and processing those – those are all skills that are inherent in Edwards journal entries that were used as illustrations in parts 1 – 3 of that series.
Please examine categories for other areas of interest that may be addressed in this blog.